


Incursion

by 221b_hound



Series: Lady Akela [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Eavesdropping, M/M, Matchmaker Mrs Hudson, Nudity, Pack Dynamics, Possessive Sherlock, Post-The Hounds of Baskerville, Sherlock Finds Out, Sibling Rivalry, Werewolf Biology, Werewolf Mrs Hudson, protective Mrs Hudson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 14:21:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1691432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>IOU letters in blood are being sent to the people Sherlock cares about. Mrs Hudson is less worried about that than the fact her cubs are having silly squabbles and not getting around to noticing they ought to be mates. So she has a few words with the boys to get things rolling, and it is all going well - but those IOUs are about to be collected, and Sherlock is about to confront a truth he doesn't believe in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Incursion

Mrs Hudson doesn't require paranormal hearing to hear the argument upstairs. John's voice is like a bark - short, sharp words delivered in a clipped rage. Sherlock's is more of a growl - low and rumbling, snarling and full of warning. Most of the words are indistinct, but John's final: "they'd better not be there when I get back!" is clear, as is the slamming of the upstairs door.

Silly, silly pups.

Mrs Hudson is hovering in the foyer as John comes stomping down the stairs. He gives her a challenging glare, but she meets his ire with a disapproving moue and he sighs. "Sorry. Bad day."

"What's he done now?" she asks, with both kindness and forbearance.

John scrubs his hand through his hair. "Nothing more than usual. A pair of shoes in the oven.  The feet were still in them. I wish Molly wouldn't give him those specimens, sometimes."

"Oh, you know what he is, John. I thought you found it funny, him and his terrible habits."

"I know." He sighs again and the side of his mouth quirks in a memory of a grin, because no, it doesn't usually bother him. Not even the heads. "I'm just out of sorts. He's not taking the threats seriously enough."

Mrs Hudson clenches a fist in her apron. "Threats?"

He grimaces. "Someone attached to Moriarty, apparently. sherlock says that psycho carved an IOU into an apple the day he visited. Then yesterday we got a creepy IOU in the post, written in human blood on a cutting of that bloody Riley article, addressed to me. Last night a cutting about Moriarty's arrest was sent to Greg Lestrade. Same IOU, more blood."

Mrs Hudson considers the similar IOU letter - on a cutting of a report of Moriarty's death, featuring both Sherlock and DI Lestrade - she received only this morning. She doesn't think the sender actually knows about her. Given these other two letters, she thinks the sender is generally just threatening people close to Sherlock - John and the DI and her. Sort of an threat display, pissing on Sherlock's (her) territory.

It's at best a foolish gesture. At worst, a suicidal one. She has the perpetrator's scent now. She isn't very worried about dealing with him when the time comes.  But she doesn't like it that the nice Inspector has received a threat too.  Certainly not now she suspects her newest cub has an attachment to the man.

Mycroft had seemed so diffident a few days ago, asking whether he could infect another by scratching them in turn. She'd laughed at his charming folly, but his relief had led her to pat his hand and say, "You can't harm anyone you care for with this, dear, or even an enemy. if you were full werewolf it would be different, but what you are is pack-marked. You can't bring in anyone new. I can make pack or were, but of course, I'm the alpha."

John sighs again and looks up towards the sound of Sherlock throwing things around the flat.

"I should go back."

"Give him a moment, John," his landlady suggests, "have some tea."

Tea is like a magic word to this cub, and he follows her to the kitchen. As she's waiting for the tea to steep, she folds her arms and looks at him steadily. "What's going on with the two of you?" Her tone is a little exasperated.

"Nothing. It's just... It's like he thinks he's invincible. And he's not. I know first hand what thinking you're invincible can get you."

"And what's that?"

"Shot."

Mrs Hudson pours tea and passes him a biscuit. "That's not what I mean," she says, "I mean _the two of you."_

He pauses with the biscuit half way to his mouth and says, "I'm not gay."

The unblinking  look she gives him would unnerve most people.  To be fair, most people don't live with Sherlock Holmes, whose unblinking stares are legendary.

"I'm not," he repeats, "and you know that's the truth."

It is the truth, if course, but wolf senses are more subtle than that. There's a secret under the true thing.

Mrs Hudson is getting beyond exasperated. "Oh, John, you know how Sherlock feels about you." Her tone is almost scolding.

"Do I?" John sounds almost bitter then, and picks up his tea to sip until the impulse is buried. "Look, I know you think we... that we should... but it's not that easy. Sherlock made it very clear early on that he doesn't do... boyfriends. Girlfriends. Whatever. He's 'married to his work'." The quotation marks are practically visible from Woking. "And so what if he sometimes thinks something else?  I'm not going to screw up the best friendship I've ever had by giving in to a whim and the next morning him telling me how it's going to adversely affect the work so I'd better ship out. No. I am not doing that."

He bites a biscuit aggressively and crumbs spray. He immediately starts brushing himself and the table down in a resigned fashion.

Mrs Hudson feels sorry for the poor man. And also annoyed with him. More so with Sherlock. Idiot boys.

"Well what are you then, if you're not gay?"

He gives her an annoyed and defiant glare and she momentarily wishes she had scratched him and could influence him to obedience. But she doesn't do that unless cornered. It's a slippery slope, that.

"Don't worry, we have all sorts around here," she says with a twinkle of humour, but it doesn't produce a confidence so she opts for a blunter approach. "You're not straight."

His expression is impassive and he doesn't reply.

He doesn't need to. Mrs Hudson has been on the Earth a long time and, for goodness' sake, it's not like his generation _invented_ sexuality or gender. She's a _werewolf_ , for heaven's sake. She knows how far from _common_ the world can be.

John sees her comprehension and he seems both irritated and relieved. Suddenly, she understands what he's doing, in one of those aha! moments. "You say you're not gay so you don't have to lie to him."

John grimaces at her. "He can read a lie a mile off, and it's true, as far as it goes, so I can get away with it. I detest labels, by the way."

She knows what he means - she wears a lot of labels that are inaccurate or at least insufficient. They're handy to a degree but not more helpful than a shallow social shorthand. Still, as shallow labels go, 'bisexual' is a starting point.

"Sherlock's ga..."

"No. Or maybe. It's another _label_. But it's irrelevant. He made it clear that it's just a... chemical defect. Wanting.... that. So we just... let it go. Let it go, Mrs Hudson. Please."

And he gets so sad for a moment that Mrs Hudson wants nothing more than to go upstairs and clout the idiot genius over the head with a biscuit tin. She is quite certain that whatever Sherlock has said in the past, he has changed his mind. He is obviously deeply attracted to John and would like more, but having erected this little road block he clearly doesn't know how to dismantle it again.

She offers John another biscuit and he dunks it in his tea, swirls it around without any real interest. Then he shoves the whole thing in his mouth, swallows it down, nods sharply and rises. "I need some air. Need anything?"

He leaves with a list: bread, milk, lamb chops and some tonic to go with her gin.

An hour later, Sherlock tries to leave the flat. Mrs Hudson is waiting in the hall for him.

"Not now, Mrs Hudson! Case!"

It's no such thing. Or if it is, his intention is to look for John first. She'd heard him calling for John upstairs before cursing at the memory that John had stormed out.

"John's doing some shopping for me. He's good to me like that." she says.

Sherlock halts on the way to the door in the midst of tying his scarf. "Where did he go? Ah. Tesco's. Obviously. He's not your errand boy, Mrs Hudson!"

Before she can make her waspish reply, the door opens and there's John, looking attractively flushed from his brisk walk in the cold. He stares at Sherlock, nods, hands Mrs Hudson a few bags then starts to unbutton his coat as he mounts the stairs.

"The feet are out of the oven?" John asks in a grim tone.

"In the fireplace now," says Sherlock as though that's the most reasonable response.

John just laughs and shakes his head.  "Git." He continues up the stairs, but his body language has lost its tension.

"Lestrade called," Sherlck says, "The blood on the letters is a match."

"You said it would be."

Sherlock begins to follow John up, but Mrs Hudson has other ideas.

"Could you just help me, Sherlock? It's my hip." She pats her hip, looks pained and gestures to the bags of shopping. Naturally, Sherlock is going to ignore her. Fine, then.   "John was telling me about the IOUs. I didn't know there were more of them."

That stops him from bolting up the stairs on John's heels. "You got an IOU in blood?"

"Is that what it was? Nasty business. I threw it away, but I think it's in the kitchen bin if you'd like to see it?"

His snort is epic and Mrs Hudson has to hide an indulgent smile.

In her little kitchen, Mrs Hudson takes the IOU letter from between the old newspapers and advertising brochures in the bin to show him.

"I thought it was just a horrid prank," she says.

"Mrs Hudson!" His tone, just on the forgivable side of disdain, contains all the words he often refrains from using with her. _Idiot_ chief among them. He does make an effort with her, she knows. It won't help to explain to him that she knows perfectly well how to take care of herself when faced with genuine violence. Besides, she still thinks how sweet he was, throwing that awful American out of the window for daring to manhandle her. It's touching when he is protective.

"And you say there were others?" she asks fretfully, "Just like that one?"

"Mmm," he says, contemplating the terrible thing, and then takes the other two out of his trouser pocket to compare with hers. She can scent at once that the notes all smell of the same human, in the blood and in the sweat absorbed in the newsprint.

"Mrs Hudson, isn't it time you visited your sister again?" Sherlock says decisively.

"She's on holiday in Spain," she replies, "Do you really think there's a danger?"

Sherlock's phone rings then. He snatches it up with impatience. "What is it, Lestrade?" Then his expression transforms. He looks... disappointed. Although he has the phone pressed tight to his ear, Mrs Hudson can hear DI Lestrade on the other end.

"They got him, Sherlock. Turns out he was a colleague of that Moriarty fellow and was trying to carry out some insane revenge plot to kill me, John and Mrs Hudson. Secret service was tailing the mad bastard, though, and they got him outside my office about fifteen minutes ago. So tell John not to worry, and make sure your landlady is all right."

Sherlock, staring at her and assuming she can't hear Lestrade, says, "False alarm, Mrs Hudson."

She fusses about making tea and bringing out the biscuits while he finishes the call.

"Is everything all right then?"

"Yes.  Couldn't be better," he says grumpily.

"John will be relieved.  He worries about you so."

"Well, he needn't."

"Oh, I know.  I suppose he can't help it, feeling as he does about y... Oh! I said I wouldn't say anything!" She presses her fingers to her mouth, her eyes wide in dismay, as though the gesture will not just stop but retrieve the confidance she has apparently just betrayed.

"Yes. No. Hang on. _What_ does he feel about me?"

"Well, I suppose you know, of course," she continues in a self-justifying way, "I mean, you know everything, don't you? And he appreciates that you haven't led him on to hope for more than you want to give. He's very aware that you're married to your work, and he doesn't want to interfere with that. He values your friendship too much."

Sherlock is both annoyed and puzzled. "But John isn't gay. As he is at great pains to point out whenever possible."

She laughs, a peal of merriment at his rather sweet ignorance. "Oh, there are a lot of people who aren't gay but aren't straight either, dear, as you well know. But you were so right to warn him off."

"I did," he says moodily, apparently only just remembering that distant day at Angelo's, "Yes. I did that."

"Married to your work," she says for emphasis, "He knows that. He doesn't want to be a bother.

"My work. Yes."

"Though I would have thought John was part of your work now. I don't really see what _more_ distraction he could cause, and he's really rather helpful, I thought. But you know best. You just keep right on telling him you're not interested. He'll get over you. Poor boy. Maybe that nice woman he says he met last weekend will help get you out of his system so he can just be friends with you and not worry about all that..." And here she mouths 'sexual tension' as though it's taboo.

And suddenly Sherlock unfreezes from his stunned stillness. He lunges forward to kiss her on the brow. "Mrs Hudson, you are brilliant!" And then he has turned and is running  out of her flat and up the stairs, two at a time, shouting " _John_!"

Mrs Hudson naturally follows and pauses at the foot of the stairs, listening.

She hears a confrontation of sorts. It's a bit hard to follow. Her ears elongate, become tufted with coarse hair, but she's better able to distinguish the words.

"What the hell has Mrs Hudson said?"

"Tell me you're straight then."

An uncomfortable pause before, "I'm straight."

"A lie. Tell me you don't fancy me."

"I don't love you."

"A lie. Wait. Love? I said _fancy_ , I didn't mention lo..."

"What does it matter Sherlock? I'm not going to screw this up because you've discovered your libido. I'm not going to bother you with...

"You're an idiot, John."

"Cheers for that. Ta. You prick..."

" _John_. I'm married to my work. You're part of my work. Intrinsic.  Invaluable. Indispensable. _Ipso facto_ I'm married to _you_ already.  Let's stop wasting time and consummate the union.

"Sherlock!"

"I love you, you love me, we're both stupid. Let's rectify the matter at once."

"You lo...?" a choked off silence and then John clears his throat and tries again. "You love me?"

"Yes. What? Why? Do you think I'm not capable?"

"I thought you weren't bloody interested in relationships. 'Not my area' as I recall. I thought you just... Just fancied... Just.  Love? Me? Really?"

"I don't see what's so difficult to follow."

"Because, you git, I've been in love with you almost from day one and I never thought...I... You said you weren't.... You didn't..."

"I was an idiot," says Sherlock rather more softly, "it happens."

The next sound is of happy laughter abruptly cut off with an _oof_! What follows is not exactly silence. She can hear the softest sounds. A muffled hum. A tiny groan the back of someone's throat. The rustling of cloth. A gasp for air and the immediate resumption of the soft almost-silence and the small sounds of satisfaction and pleasure.

It's about bloody time.

Next she hears the sounds of buttons pinging off hard surfaces and John laughing. "Hey, that's a new shirt!"

Oh, not a good move, that. It hurts Sherlock to be laughed at, especially when he's letting his heart show...

But this is _John_ , she remembers, so before Sherlock can react or withdraw, John says fondly, "You missed one, you gorgeous bastard. Don't worry. I'll get it."

Another button bounces off a wall, then there is more of the kissing-silence before John says, "That was brilliant. You're brilliant. What an excellent idea. Hands off. My turn."

Then more buttons are popping and Sherlock makes a sound that Mrs Hudson has never heard him make before - a kind of groan and sigh and whimper. Both men are half giggling then, in between those telling silences, in a distinctly happy-aroused manner.

A few thumps indicate that the two of them are trying to move through the flat without looking where they are going. Their progress is interrupted regularly when they stop to kiss (she judges by the ongoing sounds of wordless approval and breathless encouragement) before a door is kicked open and she hears the sound of two bodies landing on Sherlock's bed.

Well pleased, Mrs Hudson goes home to have a celebratory gin and tonic, and turn the radio on loudly. One of those entertaining word game shows they have on the BBC will surely be on soon. She has no intention of listening to her cubs consummate their already-marriage, after all.

*

Mrs Hudson wakes in her armchair, sleep-fuddled (and a little gin-fuddled, to be honest). She's in her nightie, a robe, slippers. She obviously didn't quite make it to bed.

She can hear a thump from upstairs. _Still at it_ , she thinks with a smile.  Well, they do have lost time to make up for.

" _JOHN_!"

But that's not a cry of passion - that is a roar of desperation, of fear and rage - and Mrs Hudson suddenly knows what woke her.

She is changing as she hurtles out her own door and up the stairs. She's a strange horror of a wolf wrapped in strained and tearing nightwear as she throws herself against the door of the flat, crashing the door aside.

She smells blood (John's and the intruder's) and fear (Sherlock's) and rage (everybody's) before she launches herself at the man grappling with John and Sherlock in the kitchen.

John, naked, is pushing the heel of his hand into the assailant's throat, trying to choke him or at least keep him from getting closer. A gash on his chest is bleeding. Sherlock, who is also naked, is baring his teeth in a snarl worthy of any wolf. The man has a fist in John's hair and a gun pointing in Sherlock's direction. Sherlock is too enraged to care about the gun and is feinting and lunging at him, his fist wrapped around the blood-smeared knife that was used on John.

All this she sees in a moment and then, with a growl that could curdle blood, she is on this filthy dog who dares to enter her den and attack her cubs. Her teeth close on his wrist, crunching, making him drop the gun unfired, and he screams. She shakes him in her mouth, lets go, seizes him by the shoulder and drags him away from her boys.

She doesn't see the letter opener he snatches up desperately from the kitchen table as she snarls and drags.

The silver-plated letter opener.

She's shaking him, the muscle starting to tear between her teeth, the blood filling her mouth, when his frantic blow catches her in the leg.

A steel knife would have stung but meant nothing. A cut, deep perhaps, but momentary, healing even as the steel withdrew.

This blade is blunt and silver and embedded in her flesh,  and it burns and it _hurts_ and it feels like a cold hell wind blasting through her limb and _it hurts, it hurts, it hurts_...

She snarls and snaps and tears at his throat in rage and agony. She feels blood spray her maw, into her eyes. The intruder collapses one way, making an awful gurgling noise, dying from shock and terror and blood loss from his exposed throat and the agony of his shattered wrist.

Mrs Hudson falls the other way, writhing and her body transforming as her howl of pain morphs to the gasping cry of an old woman in terrible distress.

She feels hands on her and she snaps a mouth still snoutish and full of teeth before she realises it's John. She grits her teeth and whimpers as he grasps the blade of the knife.

“Be careful,” she manages to warn him, “Don’t get… my blood… in your wound.”

He looks a little wary, and angles his body so that if any blood gushes from the gash when the blade is gone, it’ll spray away from him. But the blood doesn’t spurt when he tugs the letter-opener from her thigh; it wells out and runs down her skin into the carpet.

Mrs Hudson’s whimper turns into a strained sigh, as the burning sensation recedes slightly. It hurts less now, but not by much.

She can hear someone (other than herself) hyperventilating and opens her eyes a fraction to see Sherlock staring at her with horror. It breaks her heart and she would cry if her body had room for grief as well as agony.

"We need water," John is saying. "Sherlock. Sherlock! Water for Mrs Hudson. Now!"

Sherlock stumbles to his feet and disappears. He comes back a moment later with the kettle. John holds her wound open with his fingers ( _oh, it hurts)_ and pours the water into it, sluicing out the traces of silver that burn her. It feels better. 

John sends Sherlock for more water and John dares to place his fingers on her brow. "Hold on. It's healing already. What else can I do?"

She blinks at him, tears in her eyes. "Is he dead? Is he dead?"

He strokes her hair. "I think so. I haven't checked."

"He's dead," says Sherlock in almost his normal voice. "John. More water."

"Call Mycroft," says Mrs Hudson hoarsely as John sluices the awful wound again, "tell him he can have this one for Baskerville."

"There's some raw mince in the fridge," John says, back to gently stroking her dishevelled hair, "Can you get it, Sherlock?"

Sherlock, unusually subdued, brings the mince. He also brings the blanket that is normally folded over the back of John's chair and covers her with it. That's when Mrs Hudson realises she is mostly naked, her nightwear torn - and that her cubs are also nude. Not that it really matters. Pack is pack.

John seems to notice that she's notices and shifts a little so that his thigh blocks her view of his crotch. If Sherlock is aware of the sudden awareness of the household nudity, he clearly doesn't care.

Mrs Hudson supposes he has bigger issues on his mind, and keeps her eyes on John's face. She's afraid of what she'll see in Sherlock's expression if she looks.

John pinches some mince in his fingers, rolls it into a ball and holds it to her mouth. She takes it carefully, as though afraid of biting him accidentally, chews, swallows. Almost at once, she begins to feel better.

“Be careful,” she says again to John.

“I know,” he says, calm and confident, even though she can scent the adrenalin coursing through him still. Blood is congealing on his chest from the shallow knife wound.

"You're hurt," Sherlock says to John.

John looks at Sherlock, expression almost unreadable, but for the concern. “It's not deep. I won't need stitches." John inhales then exhales a slow breath. "I should clean up.”

“And put on some pants,” says Mrs Hudson, then opens her mouth for the next ball of mince, like a baby bird.

John feeds her then shoves the remaining mince at Sherlock. “Look after her,” he says, “I’ll be right back.”

Sherlock looks back at Mrs Hudson and she dares to meet his eyes, which are calculating now. Considering. He rolls a small ball of raw mince and helps her to eat it. When John walks to the bathroom, both Sherlock and Mrs Hudson watch him go. A short while later, they hear the shower start.

“Don’t be angry with him for not telling you,” she says.

“How long has he known?” Sherlock asks, and feeds her another small ball of mince.

“Only a few months. He's known a were before and must have suspected, but he didn't _know_.”

“Since Moriarty was killed." He frowns. “You’re the one who killed him.”

“Yes.” She gazes at him with large, worried eyes. Despite herself, tears are glistening.  “Don’t be afraid of me, Sherlock. I’d never hurt you.”

He gives her more meat. “Well, of course not. You’ve been protecting me. Us.”

“You're my pack. You protect me too.”

His frown deepens. “You could have taken care of that husband of yours yourself.”

“No," she says, "He was under protection, not werewolf but pack. I wasn't an alpha then. Not till I got away. He was a danger, to _everyone_. He had to go, but I couldn’t be seen to do it. The legal system is quite good for that sort of thing, though. You saved my life, Sherlock. You did."

Tears are dripping down her face, mingling with the blood there. Sherlock seems at war with himself for a moment but in the end, he sees what was always true. She'd needed him then, and so she protects him now, when he needs it. With a home mostly, but with tooth and claw when there's no other way.

Sherlock picks up a shirt from the floor - John's new one, all its buttons torn. Sherlock pours a little water from the abandoned kettle onto it and starts to wipe her face clean.

"I'm not mad at John," he says, "I wouldn't have believed him if he'd tried to tell me. I'm not entirely sure I believe it now." He pauses to feed her more raw meat. She feels her strength returning but for now she just wants to be here, letting her cub care for her. Letting him know he doesn't need to fear her.

Then he looks at her. "Can you change at will? It's not a full moon tonight. I assume the myths are rubbish."

She smiles. Oh, this is her boy, forever asking questions, demanding to _know_.

"I'll tell you what I can," she promises.

He nods. "Good."

"Would you... Would you like to see?"

He swallows, and looks unsure for a moment, then his resolve strengthens. "Yes."

Mrs Hudson places a hand on his and he watches while her hand becomes beastly - hairy and knobbly and clawed. Her face grows snout and teeth, her eyes glow tawny-gold and she noses at his fingers. He pets at her muzzle and long ears. Suddenly, he laughs, a sort of happy sound, as at some discovery.

She returns to her fully human form, smiles at him.

Sherlock gives her a stern look. "Mycroft knows. You told _Mycroft."_

"I didn't _tell_ him," she says, half annoyed that _this_  is what makes him cross, half amused at the new manifestation of sibling rivalry.

" _Tell him he can have this one for Baskerville_ , you said," Sherlock continues, growing outraged, "Mycroft tried to send you to Baskerville. For _experiments._ "

"I persuaded him not to," says Mrs Hudson.

"My brother's not for _persuading_ ," says Sherlock, "How...?" But he stares at her, speculating wildly it seems.

"I would never take the claw to _you_ ," says Mrs Hudson, scandalised at the idea, "and it was only a little scratch."

And from the look on his face,she realises he hadn't in fact deduced so far. Perhaps he thought she'd only threatened Mycroft with violence. As if that would ever work on a man like Mycroft Holmes.

Sherlock lifts her hand and inspects her nails. "Scratch? Do you... You told John to be careful of the blood..."

"Blood and saliva can make you were," she says, "a scratch can only make you pack. I've never scratched you or John, not even by accident.  I wouldn't."

Sherlock carefully lays her hand back down. He is smiling, that smug grin he gets when he's one up on his big brother.

They both hear when the shower is turned off. Sherlock looks in the direction of the bathroom, then back at her.

"I'm all right, dear," she says, "go see if he needs help."

"He doesn't," says Sherlock, but he rises and strides off - still blithely uncaring of his nudity.

"And put on some pants, dear," she calls after him. He just laughs.

Mrs Hudson waits till she hears the bathroom door close. The sound of running water smothers low conversation before she rises and inspects the damage. Her thigh aches, but the wound has healed. She is spattered with blood, and the intruder lies dead on the floor, the carpet around him soggy with it too. Her own dangerous blood is smeared in her skin and soaked into the carpet. She'll have to replace that.

There's a little water left in the kettle. She takes up John's ruined shirt and she cleans the blood, human and were, from her leg, face, chest, hands. Then, wrapping the blanket tight around her, she limps to the kitchen to rinse her mouth clean, wash her face, drink.

When the water stops running in the bathroom, she can hear the conversation without much difficulty and feels not the slightest bit guilty for eavesdropping.

“Well hold still, then,” Sherlock is saying to some complaint of John’s. 

“Who's the doctor here again? _Ow_.” But John is laughing through the hiss of pain.

“I said hold still. There. How's that?”

“Much better. You're fairly handy with a plaster.” 

“My skills are many and varied.”

“I know. I've got a list of the new ones from last night.” They laugh, but something happens in that room and the two men grow quiet.

“What were you playing at, throwing yourself in the way? I had it covered.” Sherlock’s voice is low and troubled.

John’s reply is equally low, equally full of troubled tension. “He was about to slit your throat.” 

“He was going for _yours_. That was their plan. To kill the three of you, and leave me till last.  He only changed his plans to come after me when he found your bed empty.” 

“And wasn't he surprised to find the two of us in yours?”   

“He wasn't the only one. I had resigned myself to never...”  A sigh then. “ And then you almost got yourself killed.”

“I didn’t, though.”

“You shouldn't ... For me...”

“I've killed for you. What makes you think I wouldn't die for you?”

Sherlock makes a strange sound and after a silence replies, “As I would for you. Don't ever forget that.”

“I did notice,” says John quietly, “You nearly did.” 

Whatever goes on between them next takes a little time, full of that kissing-silence Mrs Hudson so approves of,  until Sherlock says in a whisper, “Thank heavens for Mrs Hudson, then.”

John laughs, but it's a choking sound, as though he's been surprised into laughter while on the verge of a darker emotion. 

“I'll say.  You know, that's the second time a werewolf has saved my life. Poor Bill got the sniper before the second shot. Better late than never, I guess. They haven’t all been great, though. Werewolves, I mean. There was that terrifying bastard that turned Bill in the first place.”

“I’ve just realised,” says Sherlock worriedly, “Baskerville. The experiment. You were terrified. Did you think… oh, god. You must have thought. Werewolf?” Sherlock says the word like it leaves a bad taste in his mouth. “I’m so sorry, John.”

“Old news,” says John, “It’s fine.” And then:  “Are we ok?”

“Why wouldn't we be?”

“No reason.”

More kissing seems to take place, and it seems to take a while. Mrs Hudson doesn’t mind. She’s found John’s phone and, after puzzling over it for a few minutes (technology is still not her strong point) she calls Mycroft to explain matters. She hangs up and sips water and waits, listening.

John is the first to speak again. “Are you sure you’re okay? I mean, this is major worldview-changing stuff. It was for me; took me a while to get my head around it. You'll have to build a new room in the mind palace.”

Sherlock snorts. “I'll have to reconstruct the foundations. But clearly Mycroft did it, so it can be done. Besides, Mrs Hudson is _my_ landlady. Let him _try_ to threaten her with Baskerville again.”

John grunts a cranky agreement to the unverbalised threat.

Oh, her boys.

The bathroom door opens. John is wrapped in a towel. Sherlock is damp, too, and likewise towel-draped.

“Pants!” instructs Mrs Hudson.

John darts off upstairs to dress, dodging the body and blood on the rug as though it’s nothing more than the usual detritus. Sherlock watches him go, then turns to Mrs Hudson. “Mycroft is on his way, I presume.”

She nods. “Get me when he arrives,” she says, “I need a shower. I'm such a mess!” she pokes at her hair, spattered in blood.

"You are," he agrees amiably.

She tuts at him, then goes downstairs to scrub away blood from her skin, and the taste of it, and to tidy up.

She doesn’t know yet what Mycroft will do, but she should be dressed properly for it.

*

What Mycroft does, with the help of the pack, is to roll the body in the carpet, take it out the back way to the car he drove alone into the back alley, and take the body and carpet to a secluded place he knows, there to burn the lot.

“I can’t give the body to Baskerville,” he says to the three of them, “They’ll want to find the werewolf who did it, and I have no intention of giving them your blood, Mrs Hudson, or the carpet straight from Baker Street.”

He sprinkles everything first with a large container of silver nitrate. The section of the rug that absorbed her blood congeals in a horrible way, smelling odd, but then they use kerosene and burn it all, and shove the remains with lime into an oil drum.

The assassin's body goes into another drum full of lime and it's dropped into the Thames from an abandoned dock area. The CCTV cameras have all been either disabled (par for the course near Baker Street - Mycroft tells Mrs Hudson that for once, he is grateful for Sherlock's childish resistance to surveillance) or avoided.

It's clear that Mycroft has done this sort of thing before, if not personally than at the management level. Nobody asks.

Back at Baker Street in Mrs Hudson's kitchen, John makes tea. Sherlock sits at the table with her, one large hand resting over her small one. He gives Mycroft a triumphant kind of smile, and Mycroft grimaces sourly at him, but the entire _I'm-her-favourite_ conversation happens only in expressions and subtle gestures.

John passes around mugs of tea and sits next to Sherlock, rather closer than usual, and Sherlock's smug expression simply grows moreso. _I'm John's favourite too,_ he seems to be saying, _They're mine, and I'm theirs. You had to be blackmailed into this pack._ Sherlock doesn't know the full details yet, but he knows that much.

"That should be an end to it," says Mycroft, moving on, "The third assassin in the original plan was Moran, but he's been seen to previously." He gives Mrs Hudson a courteous nod, then turns to John and Sherlock. "Congratulations, I suppose. Should I be saving a date?" His tone is mock-polite, verging on snide.

"Not _you_ , no," says Sherlock, "And I'll tell you where you can shove the customary gift."

"Steady on," says John, "We've only just..." And then he stops to stare a question at Sherlock, who huffs an impatient, non-verbal _obviously_ back, and John frowns, then grins, then shakes his head and is laughing, but he says, "Sure.  Of course. Yes. The answer's yes. Of course it is."

And now Sherlock grins, and Mycroft rolls his eyes, but still manages to look wistful when Sherlock seizes John's hand, and John squeezes his fingers back.

"Boys," says Mrs Hudson with fond exasperation. Everything has changed, now that Sherlock knows too, but it's all still the same, too. They're her boys; her pack.

And she watches Mycroft closely, thinking, that nice DI will be welcome as part of it too, if Greg is willing and she and Mycroft play their cards right. The Inspector doesn't have to _know_ he's pack to be in it, after all.


End file.
